Complications of video-assisted gastrostomy in children with or without a ventriculoperitoneal shunt

Abstract

The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that the presence of a ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VPS) influences the frequency of postoperative complications after video-assisted gastrostomy (VAG) in children. When using a power of 80%, a critical value for significance of 5% and an assumed population-based standard deviation of 0.4, it will be required to have a sample size of at least 14 children to show that a difference of 0.6 is significant when using Student's t test for paired samples. Thus, 15 consecutive children with VPSs were included in the present study. All the children had nutritional problems and underwent a VAG operation at a tertiary care university hospital. After the operation, the children were prospectively followed up. Specially trained nurses documented all complications according to a protocol. For the purpose of comparison, we had a control group of neurologically disabled children without VPSs, matched for age and operated with VAG. The children did not present with any serious postoperative intra-abdominal complications or central nervous system infection. There was no significant difference in the frequency of minor complications between the studied group and the control group. This study did not reveal that children with VPSs who undergo a VAG button placement are at high risk for infection and subsequent shunt malfunction. They did not have more postoperative problems than a matched control group of neurologically disabled children.

A Core Outcome Set for Children With Feeding Tubes and Neurologic Impairment: A Systematic Review

“…The majority of these articles (78%) were cohort studies, 5 23,44,53,65,71,74,80,81,83 systematic reviews (5%), 7,49,89,96,97 and controlled trials (5%). 22,28,48,55,91 The 5 systematic reviews performed analyses on 0 to 25 articles each. Years of publication were from 1969 to 2014, and the median total sample size among our included texts was 51 (range, 3-24 920 children).…”

The Safety of Laparoscopy in Pediatric Patients with Ventriculoperitoneal Shunts

“…Laparoscopic cholecystectomy, gastrostomy, fundoplication, Ladd's procedure, and many urologic procedures all have been demonstrated to be safe without evidence of neurologic complication and low rates of infection. [11][12][13][14][15][16] In a recent comparative series, there was a higher rate of VP shunt infections in pediatric patients who underwent open (7 infections), as opposed to laparoscopic (3 infections), Nissen fundoplications=gastrostomy tubes. 17 In our study, there were 3 infections in the open group and 1 in the laparoscopic group; the difference did not reach statistical significance.…”

Postoperative gastrostomy site leakage correlated to the dimension of the gastrostomy button in children

“…The indications for a gastrostomy were nutritional problems that persisted for more than six months, [3][4][5][6][7] in children with severe diseases. There were no contraindications to surgery in any of the cases.…”